Rainbow Veins
by Electric Candlelight
Summary: A collection of drabbles regarding Irwin Wade. This was written to 'Rainbow Veins' by Owl City.


Author's Note: My first songfic, huzzah. Each of these segments between lyrics is a scene of its own. I cut off the song short once I had the part I wanted; it is copyright to Owl City, respectively, and is called Rainbow Veins. It is my favorite work of his. Please review if you read this. Thank you!

_High rise, veins of the avenue_

_Bright lights_

_And subtle variations of blue_

_Everywhere is balanced there like a rainbow above you_

_And cold nights make staying alert so hard_

_For heaven's sake, keep me awake so that I won't be caught off guard._

Wade pulled the flimsy olive drab jacket tighter, loosely holding a cigarette in his almost effeminate pink lips. The sky above them was a dark indigo dotted with still stars, and his arms were folded across his chest to keep warm. Beside him was his friend and perhaps even a mutual confidante, Timothy Upham; the black-haired man was looking off to the distance.

As he exhaled, his breath was visible in the frigid air. He looked back at the medic with a sympathetic look, taking in the fact that he was wrapping the fabric about himself as tightly as he could, the jacket nearly fitting the contours of his lean body. "Are you cold, Wade?"

Irwin smiled slightly, his exhaustion showing on his face. He was used to it, though, and it wasn't truly anything new. Being a doctor meant severe sleep deprivation for years, with few breaks. Still…it was nice to spoil yourself with the presence of somebody that cared, because your colleagues usually didn't—after all, weren't they going through the same thing?

Wade looked up, lifting his helmet and running a hand through his dirty blonde hair. "Cold and tired. I'll be okay, Upham. Thank you, though." He smiled, an upturned line across his face. He knew that he must seem truly pitiful in his current state.

Upham smiled rather sheepishly, looking down and pursing his lips for a moment before he looked back up, watching Wade with collie-like brown eyes from beneath the shade of long, dark lashes. "Okay."

_Clearly I_

_Am a passerby_

_But I'll find a place to stay_

_Dear Pacific Day, won't you take me away?_

"Wade?" About thirty minutes had passed, and for the most part they had been sitting in silence. Wade didn't know what Upham was thinking about and Upham didn't know what he was thinking about. Funny, how things like that were, that you could stand so close to somebody else and not know what was going on a foot away.

"Yeah?" His head snapped up, a result of his fatigue. His cigarette was too short to do anything with, so he took it out of his mouth and flicked it to the side. It landed somewhere in the dark, wet grass near his feet. Crickets chirped around them but there were no screeding cicadas, for they were too far north.

"If you could be anywhere, right now, where would it be?"

Wade shrugged, thinking for a moment. "California."

_Small Town, hearts of the New Year_

_Brought down by gravity, crystal clear_

_City fog and brave dialogue converge on the frontier._

"If you don't have anything good to say, can it, Brooklyn." Mellish folded his arms across his chest and Wade, watching them from about fifteen or twenty feet away, sighed softly. Could Reiben get along with anybody? Sometimes he had to wonder. It was strangely sad at times for him to watch Reiben.

He knew that there was a husk of a good person somewhere---but there were so many vices, so much anger, a dark past, very clearly...He didn't think that Reiben could be saved, as Jackson would say, so he wanted to make his life just that much easier by being kinder to him.

He'd heard the reference to a saint made in his direction and had quietly dismissed it, maybe even a little bashfully. He wasn't that important, that influential, although he certainly had an effect on the other members of the squad. Upham had shown him that.

_Make haste, I feel your heartbeat_

_With new taste for speed, out on the street_

_Find a road to a humble abode where both of our routes meet_

_The silver sound is all around and the colors fall like snow_

_The feeling of letting go, I guess we'll never know._

"When do you think we'll find Ryan? Soon? Not so soon?" Upham tilted his head, watching Wade as the young medic rolled a bandage that had come loose from its coil in his satchel. Wade looked up, shrugging before looking back down at his work.

"I don't know---it could be any amount of time, I suppose. It'll end eventually, though, because it has to." He smiled faintly, although he didn't necessarily feel all of the gesture. Upham nodded, hesitating.

"So you think we'll find him?" Upham was looking for a 'yes', and Wade knew it…if only he could be the one to give his friend that much…but he didn't want to lie, and that was more important, or so he felt.

"Maybe. I don't even know that, Upham, and to be honest, I don't think anyone does. I'd like to believe that he's alive…but we just don't know, and we won't until we find him, I guess." Wade sighed quietly, looking back up at him. "It's our cross to bear until we find him—and maybe after. Who knows, really?"

_Cheer up and dry your damp eyes_

_And tell me when it rains_

_And I'll blend that rainbow above you…_

_And shoot it through your veins._


End file.
